Skip to main content

The Mercy Seat

Let us therefore come boldly into the
throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

In chapter six of Isaiah, the prophet has seen the Lord, high and lifted up. He has watched as the seraphim (the expression of God's holiness) serve Him upon His Throne. He has heard them cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory."

Perhaps Isaiah ponders what is next, for the seraphim are approaching him as it were in slow motion, with a live coal taken from off the altar. Mind you, he has just honestly confessed to The Lord of Hosts that he has a sin problem. 

Surely not Isaiah 
… who is about to write with a clear view
of Grace the humiliations and sufferings of Messiah.
Surely not Isaiah
... who will prophesy of Israel's exile to and the return from Babylon.
Surely not Isaiah
...  who will write concerning David's Righteous Branch
in the Kingdom-Age.
Surely not Isaiah
... who will inform the masses of the new heavens and the new earth.

Yet here was his confession:
Woe is me! for I
am undone; because I am a man of
unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst 
of a people of unclean lips; for mine
eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of Hosts.
Isaiah 6:5

So then how did God deal with the prophet with unclean lips who lived in a generation of unclean people? Sin was obviously all around him. and he had participated. 
God had the seraphim lay the coal directly on the problem.
I believe there was pain there.
A cleansing was taking place and
the hearing of the words,
"Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquity is taken away,
and thy sin purged" was surely music to his ears

And then Isaiah heard the voice he obviously
was longing to hear, the Lord, saying, "whom
shall I send, and who will go for us?
Then said I, Here am I; send me."
Forgiven and cleansed, Isaiah was ready for service to God.

But how is it for us who are born in this Dispensation of Grace (the Church Age) about which the prophet wrote? The age of the Priesthood of the believer (I Peter 2) when all believers are unconditionally constituted a kingdom of priests. We can come boldly to the Throne of Grace because we are with Christ, in Christ, and have access to God in the Holiest (Hebrews 10).

Let us therefore come boldly into the 
throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, 
and find grace to help in time of need.
(Hebrews 4:16).

He wants us there. He made preparations for us to meet Him there. It is our place of refuge. What was, in dispensations past a judgment seat is now The Mercy Seat. It is the place of propitiation (hilasterion) the word used in the Septuagint for "Mercy Seat." (Hebrews 9; 4; Ex. 25)
In fulfillment of the type,
Christ is Himself the hilasmas:
(that which propitiates)
and the hilasterion,
(the place of propitiation) —the Mercy Seat
sprinkled with His own Blood.
Jesus can and does righteously show mercy,
for He met every demand of the law.
He paid the price at Calvary.
He shed His Blood to purchase our pardon.

The modern rendering of the song
erroneously implies that
Christ is seated upon the Mercy Seat.
Ah, much more than that—
He IS the Mercy Seat!
He IS the hilasmas (He Who Propitiates!)
He IS the hilasterion (The Place of Propitiation!)

Hebrews 9:5
I John 2:2
Romans 3:25

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It was Over... The South Was Defeated

Isaac Payne rode with the last of his company to Appomattox on April 10 with no inkling of what to expect. He waited outside the perimeter. Enlisted men were not allowed to be present on the streets of the Courthouse area. Only commanding officers. Isaac was emaciated, just like all the other southern patriots who leaned hard against the white picket fence that surrounded the township. Tired, empty, and disheartened, they waited to know the end of the story. One man could scarcely be identified from the next. They all looked the same. Withered and wasted. Isaac dismounted and patted Glory. She was his only earthly possession besides his weapons. His only connection to home. He gripped the bridle and pressed his face to her thin neck, unconsciously rubbing his hand over her protruding bones. If he looked up in the distance he might see his father and brother riding the dusty road to Appomattox to join him, but how could that be? They were dead. The thought of their absence and

On The Cusp—

John 14:6 I am the way … Jesus sat with his disciples, giving them the most pleasant of instructions—instructions that concerned the state of the heart, though the human heart, apart from Christ, cannot be trusted.  Jeremiah described it as “… deceitful above all things and desperately wicked …” (17:9). But Jesus told the disciples in John 14:1: “Let not your heart be troubled …” He had spent the better part of three years with these men, and for some reason when He began that day to linger on going away and heaven and things prepared, Thomas just didn’t get it. He doubted and wondered and pondered and questioned:              “How will we get to the Father’s House?” and              “How on earth are we going to know the way?”             Imagine being there yourself as Jesus arrested thoughts concerning His departure, addressing two emotions that plague us even now: doubt and fear. He dealt with Thomas’ doubts that day in the same way He deals with ours. He had alread

Once for All

I was just thinking… If we say that salvation is progressive— I loathe the word progressive these days—and that there is not that moment when we are set free from the law of sin and death, then we obviously are still under the law, trying by our own feeble efforts to save ourselves. How debilitating. Besides, that’s not going to happen. We don’t have what it takes. Or maybe we’re waiting for God to perform some random act of kindness toward us that will take us out of the misery of not knowing whether we’re saved or not, because it is a progressive thing, and if it is a progressive thing, then whenever will God do whatever it is He wants to do to make  it happen? See how outrageous it sounds? There is an answer, you know. Romans 8:2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life In Christ Jesus hath made me FREE from the law of sin and death.” We never had to work for it in the first place. The freedom Christ gives is—let’s see— FREE ! Paid for in pr